The present invention relates to a chewing gum having increased environmental acceptability. In particular, it relates to a chewing gum product incorporating a delayed-release modification agent.
Chewing gum is a widely enjoyed confection product. However, chewing gum has an undesirable quality of sticking to substrates such as sidewalks or pavements after its use. Therefore, attempts have been made to formulate chewing gum compositions which break down after being used by a consumer. One approach has been to add a relatively large amount (typically around 5%) de-oiled lecithin to the chewing gum. Chewing gum with de-oiled lecithin results in gum cud that disintegrates and is less adhesive to a hard substrate such as concrete, brick, or stone. However, it has been found that such high levels of lecithin also cause the chewing gum product itself eventually to dissolve, even during storage and before chewing by a consumer.
Other attempted solutions to the problem have been to reformulate gum bases to be inherently less adhesive. Such chewing gum base components have included elastomers containing silica or fluorine which have markedly less adhesion than conventional gum bases. However, such elastomers have not achieved commercial success due to cost, regulatory problems or undesirable flavor.
Thus, it would be desirable to create a chewing gum product which exhibits increased environmental acceptability after use and also has a reasonable shelf life.